by Blair, Tony
The strain on everyone around me was almost unbearable. At home in Downing Street, I was a bit like a zombie; eating meals distractedly; not hearing questions the kids asked; trying to keep family life normal but with all of them acutely aware it was all very abnormal, not least because of how I was behaving. I forced myself on occasions to relax and stop working, but the issue was like an incessant throbbing ache that wouldn’t go away, wouldn’t let you forget it for an instant, and didn’t stop reminding you of the necessity of dealing with it.
Gradually I did deal with it. I sat and reasoned it all through. I knew in the final analysis I would be with the US, because in my view it was right, morally and strategically. But we should still make a last-ditch attempt for a peaceful solution. I decided to do two things. First, to make the moral case for removing Saddam in response to the protesters’ moral case against war. Second, to try one more time to reunite the international community behind a clear basis for action in the event of continuing breach.
On the day of the massive demonstration in London – 15 February – I was due to make a speech to the Scottish Labour Party Spring Conference in Glasgow. I didn’t sleep well, going over the arguments in my head, but I was determined to make the point that whatever their feelings about the ghastly reality of conflict, people should not be able to hide from the ghastly reality of Saddam continuing in power. In my hotel in Edinburgh (where we were staying for security reasons) I sat and worked from the early hours.
The Caledonian is a wonderful old hotel situated at the end of Princes Street. From the suite I could see Arthur’s Seat rising up behind Edinburgh Castle, that magnificent fourteenth-century edifice within whose battlements the Tattoo takes place each summer, where the pipes and drums are the musical backdrop to a display of ancient Scottish military might. I used to go as a teenager while still at Fettes, even though it was during the school holidays. Somehow, looking out of the hotel window at the rock and the castle and all the familiar sights of Edinburgh, my mind settled as it needed to in order that I write this speech.
The conference centre in Glasgow was ringed with security. The protesters were out in force. My speech was heard respectfully by the party members. Actually, people were interested in the argument. When I came to the core of the speech, I described the case in these terms:
The moral case against war has a moral answer: it is the moral case for removing Saddam. It is not the reason we act. That must be according to the United Nations mandate on weapons of mass destruction. But it is the reason, frankly, why if we do have to act, we should do so with a clear conscience.
Yes, there are consequences of war. If we remove Saddam by force, people will die and some will be innocent. And we must live with the consequences of our actions, even the unintended ones. But there are also consequences of ‘stop the war’.
If I took that advice and did not insist on disarmament, yes there would be no war – but there would still be Saddam. Many of the people marching will say they hate Saddam, but the consequences of taking their advice is that he stays in charge of Iraq, ruling the Iraqi people. A country that in 1978, the year before he seized power, was richer than Malaysia or Portugal. A country where, today, 130 out of every 1,000 Iraqi children die before the age of five – 70 per cent of these deaths are from diarrhoea and respiratory infections that are easily preventable. Where almost a third of children born in the centre and south of Iraq have chronic malnutrition. Where 60 per cent of the people depend on food aid. Where half the population of rural areas have no safe water.
Where every year and now, as we speak, tens of thousands of political prisoners languish in appalling conditions in Saddam’s jails and are routinely executed. Where in the past fifteen years over 150,000 Shia Muslims in southern Iraq and Muslim Kurds in northern Iraq have been butchered; with up to four million Iraqis in exile round the world, including 350,000 now in Britain.
This isn’t a regime with weapons of mass destruction that is otherwise benign. This is a regime that contravenes every single principle or value anyone of our politics believes in. There will be no march for the victims of Saddam, no protests about the thousands of children who die needlessly every year under his rule, no righteous anger over the torture chambers which if he is left in power will be left in being.
The succeeding days were a whirl of diplomatic activity, speeches, press conferences and phone calls. I was now running on pure adrenalin, utterly focused, clear in my own mind and watching as other leaders came to their final decisions. Some broke in favour of the US; some against; some broke for cover. It was an agonising time for practically everyone. The stakes were high, as high as anyone could remember. George was clear: bar something extraordinary and unforeseen, America was going to remove Saddam. The whole might of the US armed forces was mustered around Iraq.
The irony, as I pointed out to George, was that as American intentions became more plain, so of course the attitude of Saddam shifted to more cooperation. This was reflected in the Blix Report of 14 February. Just as that of January had pointed to a breach of Resolution 1441, so the report of February pointed towards greater compliance. But it pays to reread the report now. It was clear that compliance was stepped up significantly as the prospect of military action became more real, but it was also clear that the problem was unlikely to be resolved unless those running Iraq had a genuine and not transitory change of heart. The report described the finding of imported material for longer-range missiles in breach of UN resolutions; the difficulties of tracking down the anthrax and VX nerve agent, without greater Iraqi cooperation; and it concluded: ‘If Iraq had provided the necessary cooperation in 1991, the phase of disarmament – under Resolution 687 (1991) – could have been short and a decade of sanctions could have been avoided. Today, three months after the adoption of Resolution 1441 (2002), the period of disarmament through inspection could still be short, if “immediate, active and unconditional cooperation” with UNMOVIC and the IAEA were to be forthcoming.’ They were hopeful that Iraq could be disarmed; but the report still concluded compliance had yet to conform to the requirement of the UN resolution of three months before.
Even in his report to the UN on 7 March, here is what Hans Blix said about Iraq’s cooperation. Having stated that it was increasing, which, as he put it in somewhat of an understatement, ‘may well be due to outside pressure’, he then addressed the matter of interviews and documents:
It is obvious that, while the numerous initiatives, which are now taken by the Iraqi side with a view to resolving some long-standing open disarmament issues, can be seen as ‘active’, or even ‘proactive’, these initiatives 3–4 months into the new resolution cannot be said to constitute ‘immediate’ cooperation.
Most of all, on the crucial matter of interviews, Blix was never going to get cooperation. That only came after March 2003 with the ISG. So though both we and Blix wanted more time, it is highly doubtful that it would have yielded anything other than the (wrong) conclusion that because Saddam had no active WMD programme, therefore he was not a threat.
This issue of interviews was absolutely of the essence. In the end it was how the ISG got to the truth of the whole business. The reality was that he was never going to allow his top people to spill the beans. In December 2002, after Blix and UNMOVIC entered Iraq, we had intelligence (and this remains valid) of Saddam calling his key people working on weapons together and telling them anyone who cooperated with interviews outside of Iraq would be treated as an enemy agent. Later, in 2004, the ISG uncovered evidence of a meeting of over four hundred scientists chaired by Taha Ramadan, the vice president of Iraq, just before the inspectors returned, in which he warned them of dire consequences if the inspectors found anything that interfered with the lifting of sanctions. Of course the obligation under 1441 was just the opposite: to disclose anything relevant to the inspections. The ISG also found that once inspections resumed, foreign experts were hidden from the inspectors.
So in hindsight, my effort was probab
ly futile in any event, although at the time I thought interviews might indeed yield something.
But as one ambiguous report succeeded another, opinion polarised further.
Public opinion in most of Europe was pretty fiercely against. In Spain, José María Aznar told me that there was only 4 per cent approval for military action. I told him that was roughly the number you would get in a poll of people who believed Elvis was still alive. But he was a tough guy and was going to stay firm with America. He believed, like me, that the prospect of a link between WMD proliferation and terrorist groups was too real to be countenanced; and now was the moment to take a stand with the one regime, Saddam’s, that had used WMD.
But he also, like me, thought it critical, if at all possible, to get a fresh UN resolution authorising action. Jack, Hilary Armstrong, Sally, all those closest to me were advising that without a UN resolution specifically agreeing military action, the politics was going to be difficult and possibly terminal. I asked Alastair what he thought my chances were of having to resign. ‘Around twenty per cent,’ he said. ‘More like thirty per cent,’ I replied, ‘and rising.’
Cabinet meetings were regular and on the whole supportive. Robin was clearly manoeuvring for the exit, but doing it, to be fair, with transparency and no ill intent (at that time) towards me personally.
Clare was being her usual self. One of the most bizarre things said about the build-up to war is that it was a kind of one-man mission, discussed with a few special advisers on the famous sofa in the den, with the Cabinet excluded. Actually, it was the topic at virtually every Cabinet meeting for nigh on six months, with not just me but Jack and Geoff Hoon briefing extensively, and everyone not just having the right to have their say, but saying it.
It was also the only military action expressly agreed in advance by the House of Commons. The Opposition leaders were briefed throughout and the intelligence and military chiefs made available to them.
Both Opposition leaders behaved honourably and decently. Charles Kennedy was going to be anti-war, that was clear, but he conducted himself in a sensible and friendly fashion and I think understood that I was also in a difficult position.
Iain Duncan Smith had long been an advocate of taking on Saddam. His view was that Saddam was a threat, he would never change and he had to be confronted. He had written a very powerful pamphlet on the issue in early 2002. Like the Thatcherite ex-ministers and followers, he was Eurosceptic but passionately in favour of the American alliance. He gave solid backing and I was really grateful for it. What’s more, unlike many of his colleagues, he wasn’t a fair-weather friend, but remained of the same view even when the going got tough.
It was reasonably clear fairly early on that I would need Tory votes to be sure of winning in the House of Commons, and we were already committed to a vote before the action. So I knew I would win the vote itself. But – and it was a big ‘but’ – the Tories were, perfectly justifiably, making it clear that if there was a ‘no-confidence’ motion following the vote on the conflict, then they would side with the rebels. In that case, I would be out. Therefore I had to win well, and in a way that deterred any on my own side taking their opposition as far as agreeing they would vote against the government on a ‘no-confidence’ motion.
On Wednesday 5 March, as France, Germany and Russia issued a joint statement separating themselves from the US, Jack came over after PMQs. He was genuinely alarmed and worried about the political fallout. ‘If you go next Wednesday with Bush and without a second resolution, the only regime change that will be happening is in this room.’ He said it as a friend and colleague; and he meant it.
I discovered that Andrew Turnbull, who had succeeded Richard Wilson as Cabinet Secretary in September 2002, was quietly looking into the Labour Party rules and what they meant for government in the event of my falling. It would have had to be led by John Prescott and there were a series of bureaucratic consequences that Andrew was trying to work through. He wasn’t, by the way, doing it sneakily; he was quite within his rights to investigate all possibilities, and this was certainly one. But when I heard, I laughed a little uneasily and I thought: These really could be the last days in office.
I was going flat out to see if there was any juice left in the diplomatic tank. On 7 March, things got more complex still when Putin made it clear he would veto any second resolution. I knew I had about ten days in which to try to buy some time for the inspectors. I still thought it possible – though the odds were lengthening – that we could get a Saddam capitulation; or, another idea floating around, that we could agree a special blue beret (i.e. UN-backed) inspections force that would effectively take over the disarmament process. Meanwhile, I had come up with my own idea, on which I had been working with Hans Blix and some of the non-aligned countries on the UNSC.
There are five permanent members of the UNSC. Then there are another ten non-permanent members who rotate between the nations. These are drawn mainly from South American or African or Asian nations. Each of the permanent members has a veto. The non-permanent members don’t.
My idea was really born out of the essential ambiguity in the UN inspectors’ reports that Hans Blix presented. As will be seen, the reports were, as the Americans rightly said, evidence that the November 2002 UN resolution was being breached. Therefore, they said, as a matter of policy and also as a matter of law, military action was justified.
However, it will also have been seen that you could say politically: OK, there has not been full compliance, but there has been some. And it was obvious that the areas of non-compliance could be identified, in particular the failure to allow interviews outside of Iraq, the non-production of relevant documents, the refusal to provide evidence of destruction of the illicit materials, and so on. I conceived of the following idea: that we draw up a document with the UN inspectors, identifying the clusters of unresolved issues; that we spell out, on the back of it, the demands to which Saddam must yield forthwith; and that we give a limited time – seven days – for beginning total compliance, otherwise military action would follow. Blix thought Saddam could do it. I undertook to persuade the US. It would be a very hard sell.
Again, interviews were my main point of focus. In this regard, I ended up having a rather troubling series of conversations with Hans Blix. I said to him that we had to take the key people out of Iraq. That was the only way they were going even remotely to dare being honest. He was reluctant. They could be killed, he said, or their families tortured. He didn’t feel he could take that responsibility. I was a little exasperated. If they’re going to kill them, I used to say, what does that say about Saddam and compliance with 1441? Anyway, in the end he relented.
Those around me had come to the following view: if we put a resolution with such a timeline to the UNSC and it got vetoed, we could live with it, provided we got majority UNSC support. This was now a political not a legal issue.
For the week between 7 and 14 March I had a crazy schedule of calls. Since many of those to whom I was talking were on Eastern Standard Time, I would often be calling into the early hours of the morning. It was indeed a hard sell to George. His system was completely against it. His military were, not unreasonably, fearing that delay gave the enemy time – and time could mean a tougher struggle and more lives lost. This was also troubling my military. We had all sorts of contingency plans in place for what Saddam might do. He might set the oilfields on fire, release chemical or, worse, biological material, or attack Israel. His past record gave us no confidence in his trustworthiness or his humanity. There was both UK and US intelligence warning previously of this risk.
Nonetheless, I felt it worth a try. Ricardo Lagos, the president of Chile, was an ally, a really smart, sensible man, a progressive politician but with the courage to do tough things. Both he and President Fox of Mexico were in acutely uncomfortable positions: big allies of the US, but with their public opinion overwhelmingly against war.
I set out my case for delay in a note to George. We then had a
call. It was tricky but I laid it on the line and reluctantly he agreed. We got the document prepared with the Blix people. It had five crucial tests in it. It would, especially on the interviews, have flushed out the regime thoroughly on what they were hiding and on whether they had any good faith.
Chile and Mexico were prepared to go along, but only up to a point. Ricardo made it clear that if there was heavy opposition from France, it would be tough for them to participate in what would then be a token vote, incapable of being passed because of a veto – and what’s more a veto not by Russia, but by France.
Unfortunately, the French position had, if anything, got harder, not softer. They were starting to say they would not support military action in any circumstances, irrespective of what the inspectors found. They were clearly enjoying a new and very strong trilateral relationship between themselves, Germany and Russia. It was effectively becoming an alternative pole of power, standing up to and taking on the US, and was bringing them some benefits in terms of Muslim and Arab sentiment.
I decided we should table the five tests anyway. We did so in the early hours of Thursday 13 March. They were immediately rejected by France. Jacques Chirac gave a very strong statement saying he would not support military action whatever the circumstances. Dominique de Villepin, at that time Foreign Minister and someone I actually liked but who just disagreed with me on this, also then rejected the tests per se. This was before the Iraqis even responded. Ricardo then explained that, in this case, he couldn’t really participate in an obviously futile charade at the UNSC. The UN route was blocked.
Meanwhile, we had resolved our own legal issues.